Hi everyone! A special hello to all the new people who’ve recently got involved with the dept – whether it’s been through coming to an event, or simply signing up to our website or joining the Facebook group. Hope to see you all soon, and don’t forget we know it’s really hard turning up to events or the wom*n’s room if you haven’t been before or in a while, so we will always be lovely and friendly if you are brave!

Here’s a quick update of what’s been happening, and what’s coming up.

International Women’s Day (IWD) was so great last week! The White Ribbon BBQ happened last Wednesday and was a huge success. So many people came to South Lawn to listen to the speakers and took the pledge to end violence against women.

The first Stitch’n Bitch got off to an awesome start this week. Had a good mix of crocheters and knitters… but no glue & glitterers yet 😉 It’ll be running again next Tuesday from 10am to around lunch time.

Special event: Free rad pad & moon cup workshop! Run with the lovely Environment Dept peeps, this Tuesday 20 March at 1pm in the wom*n’s room you can learn all about alternative menstruation products. If you haven’t heard of this stuff before, I know it can sound weird, but trust me, it’s worth knowing about even if it isn’t for you! Materials and friendly instructions will be provided.

The special IWD FFFILMS! screening of Miss Representation last Thursday was also fantastic with a big turn out – way more than we expected! – so thanks to everyone who came.

The next FFFFILMS! screening will be Princess Mononoke, Thursday 4:30pm – location to be confirmed

The following fortnight, due to popular demand, we might show Bring It On!

We’ve also started organising our big Semester One event with the Queer Dept: Rad Sex & Consent Week! We plan to have a great week 9 with talks, workshops and fun, learning or re-learning about sex, relationships, and consent, in a way that is wom*n positive, queer positive, enviro positive, kink positive, body positive, basically just a positive and supportive way!

Let us know if you have any suggestions for what you’d like to see: think ‘something I’ve always wanted to know about sex but was too afraid to ask’!

Many people don’t know that there are alternative menstruation products that are better for your health and the environment and also end up saving you money!

a moon cup with its cute bag

To spread the word, on Tuesday March 20 (week 4) at 1pm the Wom*n’s and Environment Departments are running a free workshop to teach everyone how to make their very own rad-pads (cloth pads that can be washed and re-used)! The workshop will take place in the Wom*n’s room and materials, instruction, tools, and fun will be provided free of charge. There will even be a prize for one lucky participant!

SOME INFO ON SUSTAINABLE MENSTRUATION…

WHAT?!

Rad Pads are an alternative to disposable pads which are made of cloth so that they can be washed and reused rather than used once then thrown out.

MENSTRUAL CUPS:

Menstrual cups are reusable alternatives to tampons which are made of silicone and shaped like a cup, collecting menstrual fluid instead of absorbing it.

WHY?!

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS:

One women uses over 11,000 disposable menstruation products in a lifetime

Well over 700 million tampons and 1 billion pads are disposed of every year in Australia and New Zealand, contributing a massive volume to the demand for landfill sites. Many components of these products are non-biodegradable.

Because menstrual cups are non-absorbent, they do not cause dryness or disrupt your body’s natural pH levels (35% of the fluid tampons absorb is natural moisture!)

CONVENIENCE:

Menstrual cups can be left in for up to 12 hours (compared to tampons which can be left in for 8 hours at the very maximum)

Because there is no string, menstrual cups are completely discreet and you only need one so there’s no need to carry bulky spares or worry about disposal of used products or packaging.

COST:

Most women spend a minimum of $8- to $20- per month on disposable pads, panty liners and tampons, totalling a possible minimum $80-$240 annually.

For the same cost a woman spends on average for a few months of disposable menstruation products, you can purchase enough rad pads to last for years and/or or a menstrual cup which will last for up to ten years.

Over the average time that a woman may have her period throughout her life, using reusable menstruation products instead of disposable can potentially save over $2,400 – $6,500.

ii. Mooncup/Radpad giveaway + workshop
We are planning to have a rad pad/mooncup giveaway, as well as a DIY radpad workshop in a couple weeks (keep an eye out for more details soon)!
In the meantime, apart from awesome giveaways we hope this event will also be an opportunity to put out some info about menstruation products that are better for the environment and your health!…so if anyone wants to write a bit about this (e.g. why you love your mooncup/radpads, why non-reusable tampons & pads are bad for the environment etc.) please email your interest/ideas/submissions to womyns@union.unimelb.edu.au.

iii. Final Zine
We’d love to put together a final zine for the year but to make that happen we need YOU to contribute! One theme we thought of was “Why I am a Feminist” – it’d be great if we could get lots of different people sending in stuff (writing, art, poetry etc.) addressing that question.
Since it is the end of the year, another idea is for people to send in stuff reflecting (perhaps with fond nostalgia?!) on what the Wom*n’s Department has done throughout the year, what you’ve learned etc.
Really whatever you come up with – be creative!
As above, ideas/submissions can be emailed to womyns@union.unimelb.edu.au and also dropped into the Wom*n’s Department’s mailbox (in the OB space, 1st Floor Union House)

iv. Other plans for the rest of the semester
Apart from the above, our major final plans for the rest of the semester include holding self-defense classes and a big end of year bbq/picnic (hopefully tied in with a joint soccer game with the Queer Department!)

And then of course there’s our weekly events – Feminist Discussion Group (Every Mon at 12pm in the Wom*n’s Room, 1st Floor Union House across from the food co-op), Wom*n’s Action Collective (Every Mon at 1pm in the Wom*n’s Room – come along if you wanna help organize all this stuff we’ve got going on!), and Girlzone (Hangout for queer/questioning Wom*n, every Thurs at 1pm in the Wom*n’s Room)

Can’t believe the semester/year is almost over! Lets go out with a bang! xo

Acknowledgement

This website was created on Wurundjeri land. We respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners of the stolen lands and waters of this area. We also acknowledge that those of us who live, study, and work here and are not indigenous are thus beneficiaries of the dispossession of Aboriginal people.